


Quiescence

by cosmotronic



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Implied Suicide Attempt, Nobody Dies, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-28 02:42:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10822071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmotronic/pseuds/cosmotronic
Summary: They storm, and they are spent in the calm.





	Quiescence

**Author's Note:**

> Short and sad, sorry.
> 
> And a reference to (attempted) suicide. It's barely there but please hit back if you don't want to know.

 

 

Storms rage.

They may strike brief and furious. Scream and rage and pummel at a single point until the earth gives or the sky cracks and the energy is gone.

Or they linger, licking about until persistence and force of friction wear at the seams. Spread wide and travel far, always flowing, changing and mutating.

Different rhythms, different heartbeats.

Entities of their own, each with unique facets and fickle ways.

 _Personalities_.

And they trick, spin fast and wild into deceptive calm. A lull to catch a breath, close and thick with anticipation. Then suddenly they suck at the air again, harsh on a bruise.

These are the storms that hurt the most.

Storms ebb.

The fiercest storms scar deeply, all ruts and furrows and torn down structures, walls cleaved to show the bleeding soft mud beyond. Destruction in their wake; ruination and discord and a life left altered.

There are scattered leavings to be collected, fortifications to be rebuilt, restructured, made safe. Batten down the hatches, build a thicker wall and prepare. It is easier, knowing how to withstand the next.

But sometimes storms pass and hurts are imagined while the earth bends and the sky sighs and it is as though the tempest has never struck, but for the memory.

Erin hates those storms the most.

They’ve weathered them all and in the end they are shattered, wrecked, and they know it.

 

 

 

In the end, they are tired.

It’s quiet, in the end.

 

 

 

They sit, side by side in the grey still after, rumble of thunder long gone. Their moment shaped by discord but detailed in tranquility.

Acceptance.

“So… this is it, then?”

Holtz is quiet, and cracked, and sad, but not tearful.

“Yes. I suppose it is.”

Erin sighs the words and it is hollow, but not empty, because it is for the best.

“Okay. Um. I’ll pack some stuff. Head over to… Abby’s.”

“You don’t have to, Ji-”

Swallows the name because it is no longer hers to whisper.

“Yeah, Erin. I do.”

She does.

 

 

 

Reactions fail.

Sometimes they never begin. Two elements pushed together, ineffectual, swirled to curdle; nothing lost, nothing gained. Elements sharing space but never giving a part of themselves. Unbonded. Free.

Erin remembers experiments like this. The failures recorded or forgotten, always moved past.

It’s okay. Those reactions never hurt in the after.

Other reactions are potent. Not always immediate; some take nurture, but once the conditions are right they effervesce. Spark and fizz and pop and explode, dangerous and seductive.

Erin had marvelled at their reaction, and Holtz had tugged her goggles down and leaned too close and marvelled too.

They had burnt so brightly, a sodium spin in a glass. Unquenchable.

They had found each other in the macrocosm, against odds beyond measure. They came together and a smile was a solvent and a wink was a flame and their reaction _caught_.

They had bonded warmly, careful words and synthesis and became so much more than their parts.

They had clashed hotly, pressing lips and dancing bodies and too many fissile words, later, that tested their bonds and cracked them for their power.

And in the end there can be no criticality without further input. Their base materials are all used up and they are split apart like so many atoms and they have not the energy left to go on.

So they storm, and they are spent in the calm.

 

 

 

Working together is hard, after.

They oppose too much. Equilibrium would be a natural state, if all parts of them were equal.

They will never be equal. One or the other will approach with a greater force or purpose and without a thought. A careless word here, a wrenching reminder there. Hands touch, eyes meet and sometimes stormclouds menace or reactions start to breathe.

But mostly it is quiet.

They will always be _friends_ , they say.

They will always _care_ , their gravities pull on one another too strongly not to. Tidally locked, one facing one in a cruel cycle.

“I’ll always love you, Holtz.”

“I know.”

“That was never the problem.”

“I know.”

But it was never going to be enough. And in the after, it is too much.

 

 

 

Damaged things can be fixed.

Some things respond well to tool and time, a nail between the teeth and a hammer in the hand and the will to patch a hole. To repair a broken fence, a lick of paint, good as new.

And then sometimes, things are found to not be damaged after all. They were just never made quite right.

Fragments can be pieced together.

Shave a little off the sides, a little here, a little there. Sand and polish and squeeze into place with a gentle pressure. It'll sit true, for a while.

Attack the puzzle with sledge and brute force. Smash pieces together, mash pieces together with frustration and desperate hope. It'll stick, for a time.

Either way, it is imperfect. They were just never made to fit.

And they will crack.

Shatter.

Worse than before and even more jagged.

 

 

 

Holtz leaves. It should be Erin.

“I just–”

“I’ll call.”

“Holtz–”

“Abby and Patty. Won’t know what to do without me. Kevin. Make sure you look for him. ‘Cause he won’t… hide and seek, you know?”

“Right. Holtz–”

“Any tech problems. Um. I can talk you through. Till you find… someone.”

It hangs.

“Holtz.”

“Adieu, Erin.”

 _Farewell_ , not _see you later_.

“Goodbye, Holtz. Jillian. Please take care of yourself.”

“You too. Just… don’t stop.”

Erin knows what Holtz means. How her waters still and her surface hardens and her depths darken and how little light can penetrate.

Holtz’s light shone brightly on her, one yellow sun upon an ocean, once upon a time.

 

 

 

Time floats.

It’s not a _river_. It doesn’t rush or surge or flow inexorably onwards, sweeping along all in its path to sunnier shores.

It’s a flat plain to be explored. A desert, sand to be churned into a frenzy or stand still for aeons.

It folds like a paper tissue; able to curve or bend and spring back into shape, wrinkled but almost good as new.

Time can glide on the air, hanging still, a tiny thing caught in an eddy to be pulled forward suddenly or tugged back.

Can come to rest over the eyes, a thin membrane between then and now. Weak layers and a malleable form and a disposable comfort when Erin can _forget_. And it tears under the sodden salted weight of _what if_ , scrunched up to lie abandoned, left without a purpose.

Distance grows.

Three thousand, eight hundred and sixty is not a number to be reckoned lightly.

Still Erin thinks she can feel the infinitesimal creep of the earth beneath her feet, adding to the miles. Half an inch a year putting her further and further from the cradle of their storm.

Holtz calls; not often, but enough. Erin ignores it.

She experiments again, grasping for the elements about her that could mix well. Searching for the reaction that will reignite the spark, hoping against nature.

She stands in the storm, praying for a lash. A howling whip that will scar her deep, enough that the chasm already marking her chest is obliterated.

Abby sees a pattern.

Wild, free spirits, funny and kind, for the most part. Blondes. More women than men, now.

Patty senses a theme.

Dates where smiles don't reach the eyes. Encounters barely worthy of the word. Bodies curled together too quickly and discarded without remorse.

Erin doesn’t care that she hands herself out piecemeal, little broken bits paid to anyone who reminds her.

 

 

 

Erin stops.

 

 

 

The world hurts when she starts again.

Abby is there and Patty is there, roughing sandpaper over her wounds.

Why?

“Hey, sweetie.”

Erin looks at them as though from the bottom of a lake.

They talk at her, lips moving and the shapes of their sounds dampened and twisted and distant, and she looks and nods and quirks her mouth, once.

They have leave, eventually, and Erin doesn’t care either way. They hesitate, at the door, and one of them turns to sink cold black obsidian into her.

“We called Holtz. At CERN. I don’t think she… I mean, we don’t know if she got the message–”

Erin’s eyes widen and time surges and distances shrink and storms are so near in her memory, sparking behind her eyes, twitching in her limbs.

“Shit! Erin!”

 

 

 

The sedative is quiet and dead like the _after_ , she thinks.

 

 

 

Her world is tiny, when she comes to.

Her catalyst in a chair, knees tucked up and arms wrapped around herself. Sucked in and small.

Tired.

“I told you. Erin. _Erin_. What did I say?”

Holtz rubs her face as she mutters, huffs loud and groans. Frustration scraping pity from the walls.

“ _Why_ , Erin?”

Erin shakes her head.

 _It wasn’t your fault_ , she wants to say. _This is my mess_ , she aches to say. _You weren't there and I couldn't bear it_ , her head screams at her to say.

 _We made a mistake_ , she will never say.

“I’m sorry.”

It's all she can say.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So I've been playing with this on and off for a long while now and never managed to get it right. It makes me uncomfortable and frankly I'm tired of looking at it. So just take it from my hands.
> 
> My muse is borked, anyway.
> 
> If you want to berate me, I [tumbl](https://cosmotronic87.tumblr.com/) now.


End file.
